Agriculture

Ag and immigrants intertwined, speakers say

New Food and Ag Summit explores immigration issues in industry

By Stephanie Alderton

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
03/31/2016 04:43:04 PM MDT

Joe Petrocco gives his presentation at the immigration panel, along with Susan Moore and Michael Hirakata, during the inaugural Food and Ag Summit at the Ranch Event Center on Wednesday in Loveland. (Stephanie Alderton / Fort Morgan Times)

Noa Roman-Muniz, a dairy expert who trains Spanish-speaking workers and their employers to work together, introduces the panel on immigration at the Food and Ag Summit, which was held for the first time on Wednesday at the Ranch Event Center in Loveland. (Stephanie Alderton / Fort Morgan Times)

Immigration was a hot topic at the inaugural Food and Ag Summit in Loveland on Wednesday.

The conference, which was hosted by industry magazine BizWest, featured panels on numerous topics, including the Food Safety Modernization Act, financing and genetically modified organisms, or GMO's.

But one of the panels that inspired the most discussion was the morning session "Immigration Challenges."

Susan Moore, Michael Hirakata and Joe Petrocco, all Colorado farmers, spoke about their experiences with immigrant workers and the challenges agriculture employers face in finding labor, while large animal veterinarian Noa Roman-Muniz moderated the panel.

Roman-Muniz laid out some of those problems in her introduction to the panel.

"If you look at the dairy industry, between 70 and 94 percent of workers are immigrant workers," she said. "And you know that it's underreported, for several reasons, and we also know that there's decreased availability."

Moore, who owns La Luna Dairy near Wellington, said her business, like other dairies, relies on immigrant workers.

"U.S.-born people do not apply, and when they do, they don't stick with it," she said.

But she also said employing Mexican immigrants opens her up to more regulation, even after the process of making sure they are legal, which she said is more difficult than it may seem.

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Hirakata and Petrocco elaborated on these challenges. For Hirakata, one big problem is the seasonal nature of the work, especially since his Rocky Ford farm only grows melons and pumpkins. It's hard to find people willing to work full-time for just a few months, he said. Petrocco added that even the number of applications from immigrant workers has declined in recent years, which isn't helped by the fact that the agriculture industry typically competes with the food service, retail and hospitality industries for those workers.

"When I grew up, there was 500 or 600 immigrants to screen during the springtime," Petrocco said. "Now, there's only 10 or 20."

What makes it possible for farmers like Petrocco and Hirakata to get the seasonal help they need is H-2A, a government program that allows agricultural employers facing a shortage of labor to bring foreign workers to the United States for temporary work. Many farmers across Colorado, including several in Morgan County, use the program, but Hirakata said even it has drawbacks.

"You have to hire an unlimited amount of United States workers as long as you have one H-2A worker," he said. "What business operates like that?"

The program also requires employers to pay workers elevated wages and provide them with housing, two meals a day and transportation to and from their home country — usually Mexico — among other things. The numerous changing regulations for the program also take up a significant amount of time and paperwork for the employer. But on the positive side, Hirakata said the workers who come through H-2A are almost always great employees, and they're exclusively contracted to one farmer during their stay.

Owners of year-round ag businesses like Moore's, on the other hand, hire workers who have permanently moved to the United States and have a green card. She said that, despite the increasing regulations and risks involved with hiring them, she loves working with Mexican employees because they tend to be skilled in agriculture and willing to work hard over long periods of time, an attitude she has rarely seen in U.S. workers, or even second-generation immigrants.

The panel was followed by a lively discussion with the audience. Greg Schreiner, of Silver Reef Organic Farms, voiced his frustration with the current presidential candidates' attitudes toward immigration and the regulations that keep being added to H-2A.

"Everybody's saying that we're taking work away from American workers, which is not the case," he said. "What would you say to them, given an opportunity?"

Hirakata responded that he wishes the candidates would spend a day or two on a farm to see how difficult it is to find willing and skilled U.S. workers. The other panelists agreed, with Moore decrying the "toxic" political atmosphere toward foreign labor.

The panelists didn't lay out any concrete solutions to farmers' immigrant labor challenges, but they did propose a few possible ways to improve their situation.

"Get involved politically, and stay involved," Moore said.

Petrocco advised the audience to "support Colorado Proud," praising the value of local products, which he believes are only possible due to non-local laborers.

Hirakata closed out the panel with a positive note.

"I know we've complained a lot, but there's nothing else I'd rather be doing than farming," he said.

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